§0. Vincent Bevins’ If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution recounts the story of the mass mobilizations in the decade of 2010s, mostly in the Global South. Bevins covers, to varying degrees, the “square occupation movements” in Chile, Brazil, Egypt, Hong Kong, Libya, South Korea, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine and Yemen (also with some mention to the Occupy movement in the United States).

If We Burn is a journalistic work based on real-life observations by Bevins as well as interviews with core organizers. Bevins does reach some conclusions about theories of change and organizational models. With curiosity accompanied with self-criticism, the book questions concepts like horizontalism, leaderless movements and refusal of representation and being represented.

§1. Departing from the frameworks used in All In, one interesting angle we can read the book through is that of Grand Strategies.

In All In, we start by identifying two variables for movement power: participation and organization. Based on these, we create three categories of grand strategies:

– ideological mobilization (strong emphasis on organization)

– spontaneous uprising (strong emphasis on participation)

– mass agitation (a hybrid of organization and participation)

(These are not concepts we invented. We borrow them from here.)

§2. Without copying an entire chapter of All In in this short note, suffice it to say that the movement experiences studied in If We Burn can largely be considered as examples of Spontaneous Uprising.

In all cases, either with some outrageous moment or by passing some tipping point of mass discontent, millions of people who were not taking action a week before come to the streets.

So, among other things, If We Burn is extremely useful to explore the questions “what kind of organization is adequate?”, “what kind of tactical considerations are essential?”, “what is the balance between guiding/leading and co-optation, in such volatile moments?” within the Spontaneous Uprising approach. In other words, if we would strategically bet on scenarios leading to a Spontaneous Uprising, then what works in such a situation?

§3. The movements Bevins studied had quite diverse outcomes. Some were co-opted by their polar opposites (e.g. in Brazil, Ukraine), some were ultimately crushed (e.g. in Turkey), some were heavily influenced by external actors (e.g. Arab Springs). Many also had varying degrees of success, at least in relation to their initial demands. Yet, in all cases “the Missing Revolution” (from the subtitle) applies.

§4. From an organizational viewpoint, spontaneous uprisings are the hardest to prepare for.

First of all, there are not check-and-balance mechanisms, no possibilities of experimenting, and learning must happen really quick, in a matter of days if not hours. (As opposed to, for instance, mass agitation tactics where successive campaigns of agitation can learn from each other in the course of a few months or maybe they could even be applied in parallel.)

Also, building an organizational culture who can step up to the challenge can be tricky. By definition, a culture is build through reiteration, mediation and negotiation, which would then lead to trainings, skill-sharing and coaching. In the absence of a test environment, how could we build capacity and trust in our organizations to seize the moment? This question is essential, not only because of the experiences in Brazil and in Egypt that resulted in a worse situation due to lack of organized initiative from the bottom and to the left, but also because of the far-right takeover of the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine.

Thirdly, such uprisings are (by definition) extremely ambiguous at their onset and their initial development rather uncertain. The common value-sets that mobilized such masses will have progressive leanings but also reactionary undertones. In addition, masses bring with them everything that we might consider “wrong” in our societies. They might carry beliefs and assumptions that can be divisive (e.g. racist attitudes), limiting (e.g. high levels of trust in some institutions) or outright destructive (e.g. a reactionary agenda). Even so, a movement learns in movement, by moving. The transformative potential of large numbers of people coming together against injustice is empirically proven and should not be underestimated. So pressing questions like “what is happening?”, “what will happen tomorrow?” and “what can happen tomorrow?” can be (and were, in the 2010s) paralyzing for organizers and organizations.

§5. In none of the examples did the left actually anticipate such mobilizations, and in all cases the organized left had a certain level of reluctance in engaging with them. This is obviously justified for groups who are invested in Mass Agitation or Ideological Mobilization as their grand strategies.

However, there is at least one basic lesson to draw: If no one in the movement is allocating resources to such scenarios on a daily basis by preparing the groundwork (communication strategies, networks to activate in short notice, ideological clarity, a core group that can operate in the speed of trust, etc.), then the entire movement fails. Thus, If We Burn becomes a book not about “the missing revolution” but rather about “missed revolutions” from the perspective of movement organizers.

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Sinan Eden is a co-author of All In.

N.B. These “interaction” articles are book readings with specific angles. We have no intention of summarizing or reviewing the books. Rather, we are exploring interactions between the books’ content (main arguments or minor observations) and the movement-level strategy and organization framework presented in All In.